The Way We Weren't
by deepfriedcake
Summary: Luke comes over to check on a wallowing Lorelai, post-Max, and quickly makes it all better.


**_Something magical happens when I walk into my house after work and the first thing I hear is Lorelai's voice greeting me from the TV. Ideas pop into my head, such as this quick story. Don't worry, A Wedding in the Hollow is still happening, (the next chapter is half-written), but it's been fun exercising my imagination with a couple of self-contained one-shots. Be prepared, there may be some more coming! Thanks for reading!_**

* * *

Hubbell was leaving Katie.

It was all so, so sad. Hubbell didn't want Katie. And Max…Max didn't want me.

I grabbed yet another tissue, blew my nose with a satisfying honk, swiped at my eyes, then crumpled it up and let it drop to the floor to mingle with all of its damp brothers and sisters already lying around my feet. I snatched a spare to ball up in my hand, prepared for the next tears that might trickle down my face, ready to commiserate with my celluloid sister in heartbreak.

But before that could happen, someone knocked at the door. My head whipped around, glaring at the interruption. How dare someone expect me to do normal things, like door opening, in the midst of such angst? God. Such a lack of compassion in this cold, cruel world.

My thumb hit the pause button and I dragged my feet along the carpet to clear a path through the tissues. I shuffled to the door, trying to build up steam, like static, so I could give whoever was there a piece of my mind. Angrily, I yanked it open.

Instead of venting my displeasure, my mouth fell open in shock. "Luke?" He was the one person I definitely didn't expect to see on the other side of the frosted glass.

His eyes swiftly tracked over me and then he looked to the side, clearly uncomfortable, his evasive actions telling me without a doubt how ratty I looked.

"What are you doing here?" In the few seconds it took to ask that question, I had tucked the tissue in my sleeve, pushed my hair behind my ears, wiped off my face and hitched up my sweatpants.

He chanced looking at me again, maybe with some sympathy this time. "Guess you really are sick."

"I'm not…I'm not sick," I admitted.

"You're not?" He was looking past me now, into the living room, analyzing the tracks my feet had forged in the blanket of tissues.

"No. I'm not." I rushed into the living room with more energy than I'd exhibited in days, scooping and straightening as I went. "Come on in," I offered, once most of the tissue outbreak had been dumped into a grocery bag, my makeshift trashcan, which had been sitting at the end of the couch.

Luke came into the room reluctantly. I plopped back down on the couch and he gingerly sat on the edge of the chair beside me.

"So what are you doing here?" I asked again, my curiosity trumping all else.

He held out a sack from the diner. "I thought if you were sick, you might need a care package."

A smile broke across my face, stretching muscles I hadn't used in days. "You brought me food?" I reached eagerly for the bag, and he leaned out over the space between us, transferring it to me.

My delighted nose sniffed the enticing scents wafting up from the large paper sack. I pulled out a wrapped burger and some fries, my mouth watering as I anticipated the deliciousness. I guess the 'I couldn't possibly eat; I'm too sad' phase of the wallowing was officially over.

"Why did you think I was sick?" I wondered, ready to take a mammoth bite of the sandwich.

Luke shrugged. "Haven't seen you around. Rory came in a couple of times, ordered stuff to go. And maybe I heard Babette say something or other about it."

"Hmm." I nodded, chewing madly. Once I'd swallowed, I tried to be polite. "OK, so this puts you in the running for the Outstanding Diner Owner of the Year Award."

He shrugged again and quirked his mouth, the Luke Danes' wordless communication of _no big deal_. "Shouldn't be too hard to win that award, since I have the only diner in town," he observed.

"Still, this is above and beyond the normal duties of most short-order cooks," I insisted.

Something that might have been a brief smile tugged at his lips. "Well, can't have my best customer waste away through lack of sustenance."

I stopped in the midst of taking another bite. "I'm your best customer?"

His cheeks, under the ever-present scruff, seemed ruddier for just a moment. "Do you know how much coffee I have to keep in reserve because of you? You stop coming into the diner and my bottom line takes a hit."

"Huh." I wanted to keep on eating, but my eyes stayed glued to his face for about five seconds longer than they maybe should. "Speaking of coffee," I finally said, and reached back into the bag, bringing out a large Styrofoam cup. I popped off the lid expectantly. "Gah! What's this?" I asked, horrified, seeing noodles floating in golden broth instead of my dark elixir of life.

"Chicken soup. In case you really were sick."

"Oh," I said, surprising myself by chuckling a little bit. I sat the soup on the side table.

"There _is_ coffee in there," he promised, pointing at the apparently bottomless bag.

I pulled out another cup.

"Not that one," he said, reaching over to take it from me. "Tea," he explained. "Again, for if you were actually sick. Tea's good for sore throats."

Instead of continuing my frantic search for the promised coffee, I watched as he flipped open the plastic lid sealing the hot tea and took a sip. There was something about strong, tall, gruff Luke Danes sipping at a cup of tea that sent a shock of sheer pleasure through me.

I frowned, trying to tamp down that crazy hit of unexpected happiness. Luke had dared to invade my Fortress of Solitude and was now trying to harsh my wallowing.

With a flounce I forced my concentration back on the magic carry-out bag, pulling forth the last two items. Finally! Coffee.

"And pie!" I squealed, forgetting yet again about my self-imposed sentence of sadness. "What kind?" I asked eagerly, tearing open the lid.

"Boysenberry," he muttered, as if I couldn't already tell that.

"Boysenberry?" I looked over at him suspiciously. "You hardly ever have boysenberry."

He looked as if I'd caught him in some sort of lie. "Today I happened to have boysenberry," he tried to say off-handedly.

"Well, lucky me then." I swiped a finger through the syrup leaking out from the generous slice of pie and licked it off. " _Yum,"_ I cooed, and then washed it down with a satisfying gulp of coffee.

Luke shifted in the chair and put the tea down on the low table between us. "So if you're not sick, what's going on?"

"Can you do that?" I pointed at his cup. "Is that permitted, putting tea down on a coffee table? Won't the table eject it, maybe throw it back at you?"

He sighed and looked at me narrowly. "What's going on with you, Lorelai? What's all this about?" His glance went from me to all of the paraphernalia surrounding the couch. I saw him take in the cover from the video, the piles of tissues, as well as the scraped-empty ice cream carton sitting beside his tea.

He leaned back in his chair with a grimace. "It's a guy," he said flatly.

My curiosity perked up again. "How do _you_ know that?"

"Sister," he said curtly, not allowing me any other familial insight. "What is it with this damn movie?" He flicked at the cardboard image of Streisand and Redford.

"Hey! Do not diss _The Way We Were_!" I snatched the case away and held it protectively.

He slumped a little, putting his elbows on the chair's arms and crossing his hands over his stomach. "But it _is_ over a guy, right?"

"Yeah," I allowed, trying to sound teary again.

He sighed deeply. "Who broke it off?"

I sniffled, none too delicately. "He did," I admitted morosely.

Luke snorted. "So he's apparently an idiot, then. Good riddance."

My head shot up. "Did you just give me a compliment?"

"Aw, geez."

I felt that smile spreading over my lips again. "You never give me compliments."

"No need, when someone has an ego the size of yours."

"Hey!" I bristled. "Listen up, Bub, when you grow up in a household where everything you say, everything you like, and everything you think is considered wrong and abnormal and a crime against humanity, you can either agree that there's something fundamentally flawed about yourself and start stealing booze out of the liquor cabinet and getting friendly with the neighborhood pill pusher in order to find some peace, or you can decide to ignore everyone else's opinion and just love yourself the way you are." I stopped abruptly, realizing that I'd let a lot more out than maybe I'd intended. "Basically," I tacked on, fighting embarrassment.

Luke's intense blue eyes were trained on me as I fidgeted with a French fry. "I'd say you made the right decision," he said after a quiet minute.

"Yeah…well…" I dropped the fry and sat back against the couch cushion.

He drew in a breath and adjusted his hat, seeming prepared to let that topic go. "So. The guy. You'd been together for a while?"

"Sort of." I was the one to shrug now. "We danced around each other for a couple of months before we actually started dating. One of those ridiculous 'will they or won't they?' things like you usually see on TV, I guess."

Luke nodded. "He from around here?"

"No."

"Where'd you meet him, then?"

"Umm…" I was fidgeting again. "School?"

"School?" He stared at me. "You knew him in high school? Or he's in that business class of yours?"

"No." I started straightening the couch cushions. "Rory's school."

Luke made a noise of disgust. "Don't tell me it's that dad! That dad who followed you home from Chilton?"

"No! And he didn't follow me home! He knew I worked at the Independence Inn," I said sulkily.

"Then who?" His eyes were on me again, all no-nonsense.

"He's…a teacher. At Chilton." I closed my eyes, swallowed hard. "Rory's teacher," I mumbled, hoping that maybe he wouldn't hear.

" _Rory's teacher!?"_

Guess his hearing was just fine.

I nodded. What else could I do?

"Geez, Lorelai! What were you thinking? Rory was OK with that?"

"Sure, of course. You know, she…got used to it. She likes him, she's fond of me, so sure. She was fine with it." I nodded, bobbing my head about a million times. "She was absolute fine. Ish," I added, unable to completely lie to him.

"Unbelievable," he muttered.

"Hey!" I said again, irritation firing up for the second time. "He _liked_ me, OK? I liked him. He was handsome, and smart, and funny. Why shouldn't I go out with him?"

"I imagine a lot of men _like_ you, Lorelai! And I bet a lot of them _don't_ teach at your daughter's school!"

"You sound just like my mother," I shot at him, the worst criticism I could imagine.

Neither of us said anything for a few minutes, both of us stewing.

"I saw you with him, you know," Luke suddenly confessed, his voice strained.

I looked over at him, surprised. He was looking down at his hands clasped in his lap, but I could see some sort of emotion struggling over his face. Sort of…like hurt? Or pain. He'd seen me with Max and it…had hurt him, somehow.

 _I'd hurt Luke._

I gasped, shocked by that thought.

He glanced up then, back in control. "That night it snowed. With the re-enactors?" He was able to look at me, a little coolly. "That was him, right?"

"Yeah, that was him. Max," I said softly.

"Max," Luke repeated, sort of in a sneering way.

I ignored his tone. "That was our first…well, date, I guess. We'd been talking for months about going out, and that night his car broke down and he ended up at Gypsy's, and I rescued him. Fed him. Gave him a couch to sleep on."

"Guess your precious snow had a present for you after all," Luke said sarcastically.

"I thought so at the time." I felt sad again. Very, very sad.

Luke rubbed his face and then waved the hand at me. "So what derailed your storybook ending?"

I sighed, thinking about all that had happened, feeling exhausted. "Everything."

"Wow, everything, huh? That's rough when everything goes against you."

I tried to glare at him but I just didn't have it in me. He must have been able to see I was close to breaking again, because he backed down, looking a little ashamed. "Go on," he said, sounding slightly apologetic.

"I'd decided it wasn't going to work out, for a lot of reasons. I went to school for Parents' Day, determined to end it with him."

" _You_ did?" Luke asked, with sudden interest.

"I did," I nodded. "But somehow, when I was there with him, and trying to tell him…We ended up kissing instead."

Luke's eyes went wide and hard and he seemed to be breathing very rapidly. I hurried on.

"We kissed, and one of Rory's classmates…she saw us. She told…everyone," I whispered.

"Dear God." Luke was slowly shaking his head. "Rory."

"Yeah." I buried my head in my hands, not wanting to look at him. "She was…well, you can imagine what she was."

"Poor kid," he said quietly.

I groaned, wanting to cry my anguish out all over again. "And my mother…My mother was absolutely livid about it. She said all of the things you said, only nastier and meaner. And she asked me if it was worth it, if he was the one. And I said…" I looked over at him, for some reason wanting to judge his reaction to my next words. "I said maybe he was."

He flinched. It came and went in a moment and then he was back to listening stoically, but there had definitely been a flinch.

"And that got me thinking, that the worst had already happened, that maybe we could weather it out, fight to be together. Have that happy ending, you know? So I went to find him, to tell him I still wanted to try, that I still wanted _us_." My throat closed down, fighting tears.

"What happened?" he asked, surprisingly gentle.

"He said he wanted out. That he couldn't jeopardize his position. That he'd been foolish, that he'd nearly ruined his whole career by dating me. He said we needed time away, to figure it all out."

"Ouch," Luke offered.

"Yeah," I sighed. "'We need time apart' is never good."

"No," he agreed. "It never is. That's right up there with 'It's not you, it's me.'"

"Yeah," I said, smiling in spite of myself.

There was a brief spell of silence again. Companionable, this time.

"So was he?" Luke asked after a minute, sounding resolute. "The one?"

"No," I said immediately, stunned by how quickly I'd come to that conclusion.

"No?" He looked as shocked as I felt.

"No." I pushed my hair back, ready to launch into my newfound theory. "Do you remember what it's like, that first time you _really_ like someone and they like you back? And you think they're so amazing and you'll never find anyone else better and you can't believe you were so lucky as to find this one special person? And then the next week, Bobby Caldwell smiles at you in the drugstore and you realize that maybe they weren't the one after all?"

He grinned. "Well, for me it was Lisa Storey in my dad's hardware store, but yeah, I know what you mean."

I nodded quickly. "I think that Max was my first serious relationship in a long, long time. I'd gone out, dated around from time to time, had some fun, but this was the first time since I'd had Rory that I had a real, actual relationship. A boyfriend. And I think I got so caught up in the wonder of that idea that I maybe thought Max was a better match than he actually was."

Images of Max's smug face, remembrances of his condescending manner, suddenly flashed through my consciousness. Truthfully, how long would I have put up with his streak of superiority that had flared at least once every night we'd been together? How many Swann's Ways would I have been forced to read? I shuddered at the future that might have been.

Luke was looking at me curiously. "Did you just talk yourself out of being heartbroken?"

"Um, maybe?" I tilted my hand back and forth in the air. "At least I think I understand what I was thinking more. Not that I didn't like Max. I did. He's a great guy," I insisted staunchly.

"I'm sure he's a real dreamboat," Luke said dryly. He looked at me straight-on. "But he's still an idiot."

I smiled back. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Luke stood up, patting at his pockets. "I should get back. Caesar probably wonders if I finally snapped and killed Taylor, and now I'm having a hard time hiding the body."

"You know, I'd be willing to help you stash Taylor's body, anytime," I offered, walking to the door with him.

"You're a real friend," he said, in that wry tone he so often took with me.

Hesitantly, I reached out to pat his arm. "Thanks for the food, Luke. You want to talk about a real friend? I think I'm looking at one right now."

He did the 'no big deal' gesture again. "Glad you liked it."

"I loved it," I said, my voice suddenly going all wobbly.

He looked askance at me, nervously, it seemed. "Hey, uh, could I maybe ask you a favor?"

I sighed dramatically. "So I guess there really is no such thing as a free lunch, huh?"

"No, that's not –" His cheeks, under the whiskers, flushed again. "I'm not saying I only did this because I wanted something!" he protested.

"But you do want something," I smugly pointed out.

"All I want –" He stopped, got himself composed again. "I was just wondering, if when this is over…" He pointed backwards, at my sad mess.

"Wallowing," I supplied.

His left eyebrow quirked up. "Fine. Wallowing. When your _wallowing_ is over, and you maybe feel like going out again, would you please tell me?"

My hand figured it out before my brain could even begin to sort through the meaning behind his request, and it reached out to grab his arm, making sure he wasn't going to bolt out the door. Once my brain caught up, I was dumbfounded. "Luke! Did you just ask me out?"

"No," he said, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, is that what you think? That I'd hit on you while you were still crying over some other guy?"

That brought me up short. "No, I don't think you'd do that," I said, so disappointed that embarrassment from my misunderstanding didn't even figure into it.

"What I _said_ ," Luke explained impatiently, "is for you to please tell me when you _do_ feel like dating again."

I shook my head, totally confused. "Why?"

"Because…" He paused and looked at the door, his means of escape, with longing. The flush was back on his cheeks, and he was looking even more delicious to me than the hamburger did when I'd first unwrapped it. And _that_ was saying something. "Because I would like the chance to take you out before some other pompous idiot catches your eye." Luke gave a sharp nod, apparently satisfied that he'd gotten the request out.

I was having trouble breathing. And focusing. And thinking. Happiness will do that to you. Especially when it has to knock some sadness out of the way first.

Luke was looking at me, worry apparent on his face. "Lorelai?"

I broke out of my spell. "Saturday. 7 o'clock."

"What? What's that?"

I smiled, big and shiny, the happiness wanting to burst out of me. "That's when the wallowing ends."

The smile that came to his face was big and shiny too. "OK. That's…that's good to know. Real good."

"So I'll come to the diner on Saturday…and we'll see what happens then?"

"If you're ready," he said, suddenly shifting back into seriousness.

"If _you're_ ready," I said to him, just as seriously.

"I think…" Very slowly, experimentally, he touched a wayward curl of mine, pushed it back behind my ear. "I've been ready for a long time, I think. Just didn't know how to ask you."

I felt myself choking up again, but this time sadness had nothing to do with it. "Why Bobby Caldwell, you charmer, you. Making me forget all about my first love…what's-his-name."

"Let's see if we can keep it that way." His eyes darkened with bold intent and he leaned forward, surprising me with a kiss to my forehead.

All I could do was smile like a crazy person. A happy crazy person.

"I'll see you soon," he said and opened the door.

"Soon," I agreed, and practically danced back to the couch, ready to finish eating my pie and to cry along with Katie.

But when I went to sit down, I discovered I no longer had the desire to watch her bump into Hubbell all of those sad years later. I hit the rewind button and went upstairs to shower off the stench of wallowing and to put on some real pants.

And when I went back downstairs, I decided, I was calling the diner.

Luke needed to know that the wallowing period was coming to an end at least 48 hours sooner than what I'd told him.


End file.
